THE Football Association today launched an urgent internal review into the self-confessed management "deficiencies" which have engulfed it in scandal.

And former Everton chief executive Trevor Birch (right) has emerged as a front-runner to take control at Soho Square after Mark Palios's resignation over his part in the controversy.

Sven Goran Eriksson escaped censure last night, although Faria Alam, the FA secretary with whom he had an affair, resigned.

And with the resignation of director of communications Colin Gibson finally being accepted, the FA was hoping to put the unseemly saga behind it.

But they have still been left to confront the fact that, while chairman Geoff Thompson and executive director David Davies were not publicly censured, there had been serious management failings.

While Eriksson was cleared of lying to his bosses after it was decided there was "no case to answer", the board was left to wrestle with the vexing question of how a false statement denying an affair with Alam was ever put out.

Both Thompson and Davies are likely to have been left in no doubt by their colleagues that there had been failings on their part.

And two senior figures - Premier League chairman Dave Richards and Roger Burden, from the amateur side of the game with experience of running the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society - have been asked to "support" Thompson.

Birch, who had a six-week spell as Goodison chief executive this summer and previously held the same position at Chelsea and Leeds, is the most obvious candidate within football to succeed Palios, especially as the Premier League's own chief executive Richard Scudamore is hardly likely to jump ship.

But the FA could once again look outside the game, possibly to a man with rather more management experience than Palios displayed in the alleged move to reveal details of Eriksson's affair in order to keep his own name out of the story.